Claude Speak

Claude Speak Help

Claude Speak

A voice console for Claude Code: speak or type prompts, hear Claude's replies read aloud with word highlighting, run the Claude CLI in embedded terminals, and manage many sessions — each with its own settings — all docked beside your work.

Version … — What's New

1. Overview & layout

The window has two halves. The top is the page with tabs — Speak, Listen, Code, and Files — plus the toolbar icons: History (clock), Sessions and New Session, and Preferences (gear). The bottom holds one or more Claude terminal tabs, each with its own command bar.

Global vs. per-session. Preferences (the gear at the top) sets the global defaults for everything. Each terminal tab has its own gear that opens that session's Settings, where you can override any of those defaults just for that session (see Per-session settings).

2. Speak & dictation

The Speak box is where you compose a prompt for the active terminal.

Type or dictate — type in the box, or click the mic to dictate. Click Send (arrow) to send to the active terminal.
Attach — the paperclip attaches files, or paste an image directly; Send works with just an attachment and no text.
Interrupt — when on, Send first stops Claude mid-task (Esc) and then delivers your message, so it picks up the new instruction immediately.
Send on Enter — choose whether Enter sends or inserts a newline (Shift+Enter always makes a newline).
Microphone (STT) — in Preferences → Speak, choose Claude voice dictation or Windows offline recognition.
Microphone Timeout — seconds of silence (1–10, default 5) before dictation stops. Raise it if a brief pause cuts you off.
Auto Disable Microphone on Send — turns the mic off automatically after sending.
Highlight — highlights the recognized word as you dictate; the color is adjustable.
Speak toggle (Preferences) — off hides the dictation options and the mic icon.
Double-click a word to select just that word; arrow keys and editing shortcuts work normally inside the box.

3. Listen, playback & voices

Claude's replies appear in the Listen window and are read aloud with the current word highlighted. The Listen box is also editable — paste or type any text and press Play to have it spoken.

Transport — Previous, Play, Pause, Replay, Skip (next), plus Volume and Speed. Previous and Skip step through the selected terminal's message history.
Volume — the speaker icon turns red when volume is at zero (muted).
Click anywhere in the text to set the point playback resumes from (pause, click a new spot, then Play); double-click selects a single word.
Selecting a terminal loads that session's last message into the Listen box when nothing is playing — from its history, or from the Claude transcript for a freshly loaded session.
Listen toggle — off stops speech (messages still display) and hides the transport buttons except Skip.
Voices — the dropdown merges Microsoft and Google voices and uses the right engine per selection. + opens Windows speech settings to add voices; the refresh button reloads the list. A per-session voice (set in the session gear) makes it easy to tell which session is talking.
Auto Switch to Listen — when a response plays, bring the Listen tab forward. Turn it off to keep hearing replies read aloud without leaving the tab you're on.
Auto Switch to Speak — after a message finishes, bring the Speak tab forward (after an optional Switch Delay) so you can reply hands-free.
Switch Terminal to Speaker — when a session starts talking, make its terminal the active one. While you have an unsent message in the Speak box this is held back, then applied when you send.
Return Listen to Active Terminal — when a message finishes (or you fast-forward to the end with Skip), bring the Listen tab back to the terminal you're viewing and load its last spoken text, instead of leaving it parked on the session that just spoke. Only shown when neither Auto Switch to Speak nor Switch Terminal to Speaker is on, since it only applies then.
Play intermediate messages — speak Claude's step-by-step narration while it works, not just the final answer. Narration is read the moment it appears in the terminal, so you hear what Claude is doing as it does it.
Multi-session playback — Play All Sessions Simultaneously reads every session through one queue (each prefixed with its name); off, only the selected session is read and others wait. Only Play Last Message / Only Play Last Queued Message skip stale messages. Messages that arrive while one is playing are queued.

4. Code tab

A running list of the commands Claude executes (left), each collapsible, with an embedded shell on the right. Select a command and Run, Copy, or Clear it; the sort button flips the list between newest- and oldest-first, and Clear All empties it. The divider between the list and shell is draggable. Lists are per session; turn the tab off in Preferences → Code.

5. Files tab

A chronological list of the files Claude reads, edits, or writes, each row showing the verb and line counts; select a row to see that change's diff. Open opens the file (in the VS editor when hosted there); the sort button flips newest/oldest-first and Clear All empties the list. Lists are per session; turn the tab off in Preferences → Files.

6. History

The clock icon opens per-session history grouped into Sent, Received, Code, and Files. Filter with the search box, click an entry to reload it (switching to that session), or clear a group. History is saved per session and persists across restarts.

7. Terminals & the command bar

Claude terminal — the live Claude CLI. Type directly, or drive it from Speak. When the terminal has focus, your keyboard (arrows, Tab, Esc, Ctrl-shortcuts) goes to Claude; Esc reaches Claude even inside Visual Studio.
Command bar — under each terminal, buttons for popular slash-commands run immediately. The bar scrolls if it overflows and the gear stays pinned; hovering a button shows what it runs.
Command settings (the bar's gear) — toggle which commands show, drag to reorder, and Use Global Menu to share one set across terminals (or build a custom menu for this session).
Question popup — when Claude asks a question (and Show Question Popup is on), a form opens over that session's terminal: radio buttons for a single-choice question, checkboxes when several answers are accepted, and a Something else option that reveals a text box for your own answer. Multiple questions get Previous / Next navigation with a Submit button once the last question is answered; submitting answers the question in the terminal for you. Closing the popup (× or Esc) takes no action — the question stays live in the terminal. If the question gets answered somewhere else (the Claude mobile app, or typing directly in the terminal), the popup notices and dismisses itself. Speaker icons next to the question read the question (🔊Q), the answers (🔊A), or both (🔊All), and each answer row has its own speaker — these interrupt whatever is playing and the interrupted message resumes where it left off. Switch to Session on Question (shown while the popup feature is on) brings the asking session's tab forward automatically. When several sessions ask at once, each keeps its own popup over its own terminal: a tab whose session is waiting on an answer shows a gold ? next to its name, and the automatic tab switch waits its turn — if you're mid-answer on one popup, or actively typing in the current terminal, the asking session's tab comes forward only after you submit or close the popup you're on (or stop typing for a few seconds).
Reordering terminal tabs — drag the grip (⋮⋮) at the far left of a tab sideways along the tab strip to move it; the arrangement is kept and restored on the next start. Only the grip drags — clicking anywhere else on the tab never moves it — and the first (Claude) tab stays pinned in place.

8. Sessions & tabs

New Session — opens the session form over the terminal pane. It is the same as the per-session Settings (below): set a Name, a Working Directory, and any overrides you want, then Create Session.
Sessions drawer — the Sessions icon lists sessions you can reopen or resume, showing each one's name, last-used time, model, directory, token counts, and transcript size. Both groups — Claude Speak Sessions and Sessions in Working Directory — are collapsible (click a header) and show only the directory picked in the Working Directory dropdown; the + button adds a new directory to that list (retained across restarts). The Search row filters both groups as you type by session name, with a model dropdown to narrow further.
Tab controls — each tab shows, left to right: the gear (this session's settings), the speaker badge, the name, and a close (×). The speaker badge lights up while that session is talking and turns red when the session is muted — click it to mute/unmute. Closing a tab asks for confirmation.
Search — the magnifier at the right end of a terminal's command bar (next to the menu gear) opens a search box over that terminal. The two-arrow icon beside the box toggles the search direction — the blue arrow is the active one (↓ = Top to Bottom, ↑ = Bottom to Top; hover it to see the name). Type your text and press Enter: the whole terminal history is searched (case-insensitive), every match is highlighted, and the view scrolls to the first one. A ◀ Match 1 of N ▶ label appears under the box — the arrows step through the matches (wrapping at the ends) and highlight each brightly. The inner × clears the box; Esc or the magnifier closes the search.
Tab strip — scrolls horizontally with arrows when there are many tabs; long names truncate with the full name on hover.
Rename — renaming a tab (in its gear) also renames the session in Claude.

9. Per-session settings (the gear)

Each tab's gear opens that session's Settings, which mirrors the global Preferences. Every group starts with Use Global Settings turned on — the session simply follows the global defaults. Turn a group's toggle off to reveal its controls and override the defaults for that session only. New Session uses this same form so you can set overrides before the session launches.

Name — the tab/session name (always shown, at the top).
Claude Preferences — override Model, Effort, Working Dir, Terminal (cmd/PowerShell), Session Resume, Permission Mode, Fork on Resume, Auto Load, Show Question Popup (+ Switch to Session on Question), Auto Update, and the terminal's Font / Size / Background / Text color; Restart and Log In act on this session. Changing the terminal, model, effort, permission mode, or working directory relaunches the session (resuming the conversation).
Listen Preferences — override Listen on/off, Voice, Highlight + color, Auto Switch to Listen, Auto Switch to Speak + delay, Switch Terminal to Speaker, Return Listen to Active Terminal, and Play intermediate messages for this session.
Menu Preferences — use the global command menu or give this session its own.

10. Session Resume

What happens when a session tab finishes loading. Set the default in Preferences → Claude and override it per session in the gear.

Manual — leaves Claude's resume menu up and puts the cursor in that terminal so you can choose.
Summary — compacts the conversation to a summary.
Full — loads the full prior conversation.
Clear — starts the session cleared.

11. Preferences (global defaults)

The top gear. These are the defaults every session uses unless overridden in its own gear.

Speak — Speak on/off, Microphone (STT) method, Microphone Timeout, Auto Disable Microphone on Send, Highlight + color, and font / size / colors.
Listen — Listen on/off, Voice (with add/refresh), Highlight + color, Auto Switch to Listen, Auto Switch to Speak + Switch Delay, Switch Terminal to Speaker, Return Listen to Active Terminal, Play intermediate, the multi-session playback options, and font / size / colors.
Code / Files — show or hide each tab, where to open files, and font / size / colors.
Claude — Model (with Restart) — every session set to "(Use default)" launches with this model — Effort (low … max), Working Directory (Browse), Terminal, Session Resume, Permission Mode (Default / Accept Edits / Plan / Auto / Don't Ask / Bypass), Fork session on resume (load a session as a new branched id), Update Claude, Log In / Switch Account, Auto Load Last Sessions, Show Question Popup (+ Switch to Session on Question), Auto Update, and the terminal font / size / colors.

12. Updating Claude

Update Claude (Preferences → Claude) upgrades the Claude Code CLI. Because the running sessions hold the program files, it works like this:

It warns you that all open sessions will close, then (on confirm) closes them.
A visible Claude Update tab runs the upgrade so you can watch the progress.
When it finishes, a popup shows the result: OK on success or already-up-to-date; on a failure (often a Claude window still running) you get Retry or Cancel.
Your sessions then reopen and resume automatically.
Auto Update (a checkbox) instead applies a pending update quietly when things go idle.
Auto Prune History keeps stored history tidy. When on it shows History Retention (7–90 days) and Max Items Per Session: entries older than the retention age are dropped from sessions you aren't currently viewing, every session is capped at the max-items count, and the whole history record is removed for sessions untouched past the retention age. It only touches ClaudeSpeak's own history — never Claude's transcripts. It's on by default; the New Session and Session Settings drawers carry the same controls (labelled Max Items This Session) so a session can keep its own retention or be exempted.

13. Help & feedback

Claude Speak Help — this panel (movable and non-modal; the app stays usable).
About Claude Speak — version and links.
Report a Bug / Request a Feature (in About) — opens the public GitHub issue tracker (interactivelion/ClaudeSpeak) with the matching template. Requires a GitHub account.

14. Tips & shortcuts

Send works with just an attached file — no text needed.
Double-click a word in the Speak or Listen box to select just that word.
Give busy sessions distinct voices (per-session gear) so you can tell them apart by ear.
Use a session's gear to override only what you need — everything else keeps following your global Preferences.
Clicking a command-bar button scrolls the terminal to the bottom so you see its output.
Drag this panel by its title bar; it stays open while you keep working.
Back to top

What's New

1.1.20 1.1.19 1.1.18 1.1.17 1.1.16 1.1.15 1.1.14 1.1.13 1.1.11 1.1.10 1.1.9 1.1.8 1.1.7 1.1.6 1.1.5 1.1.4 1.1.3 1.1.2 1.1.1 1.1.0 1.0.97 1.0.96 1.0.95 1.0.94 1.0.93 1.0.92 1.0.91 1.0.90 1.0.89 1.0.87 1.0.86 1.0.85 1.0.84 1.0.83 1.0.82 1.0.81 1.0.80 1.0.79 1.0.56–78 1.0.54 1.0.53 1.0.51–52 1.0.48–50 1.0.47 1.0.44–45 1.0.40–42 1.0.39 1.0.34–38 1.0.26–33 1.0.25 & earlier

1.1.20

Duplicate speech & silent terminals: the real root cause, fixed. Claude quietly gives a terminal a new session id when a session is reopened, cleared, or you log out and back in (/logout + /login). Claude Speak used to guess which tab owned the new id — and a wrong guess split the duplicate filter in two (the same message spoke once under each id) and routed that terminal's audio to the wrong tab or nowhere at all. Every terminal now stamps its own identity into everything Claude runs inside it, so a session id change re-binds to exactly the right tab: the duplicate filter follows the conversation, and audio keeps playing after a re-login or reopen.

Per-session settings survive a reopen. A session's voice, mute, and other per-session overrides now follow the conversation when Claude hands it a new id, instead of silently resetting to the global defaults.

1.1.19

Copy & paste in the terminal. Ctrl+C copies the selected terminal text (with nothing selected it still interrupts Claude, as before) and Ctrl+V pastes the clipboard into the terminal — no permission popups.

Reorder terminal tabs. Each tab now has a grip (⋮⋮) at its far left — drag it sideways along the tab strip to move the tab; the arrangement is kept and restored on the next start. Only the grip drags, so ordinary clicks never move a tab, and the first (Claude) tab stays pinned.

Questions are never lost or interrupted. When several sessions ask at once, each keeps its own popup, a tab whose session is waiting shows a gold ? next to its name, and the automatic tab switch waits its turn — it won't yank you away while you're answering another popup or actively typing in the current terminal.

A rename can no longer cancel a question. Pushing a tab's name to Claude (/rename) could fire while a question was waiting and its leading Esc declined the question for you. Renames now wait until no question is on screen, and a new named session sends its name immediately at the first prompt, before any work begins.

The “Claude - ” tab prefix is gone. Reopening a session prepended “Claude - ” to its tab name, it was read aloud with every message, and it came back no matter how you renamed the tab. Nothing adds it anymore and old saved names are cleaned up automatically.

Duplicate speech: two more escapes closed. A garbled mid-repaint copy of a message could differ from the clean one early enough to slip past the duplicate filter; near-identical texts spoken within two minutes of each other are now recognized as the same message (short notifications that legitimately differ by a word stay distinct). And a stray fragment of a tool command (its header line lost to a screen repaint) could be read as narration; those fragments are now recognized and ignored.

End no longer switches tabs. In the standalone app, pressing End inside a terminal also jumped to the last session tab (a Windows tab-control default swallowing the key); Home/End now stay in the terminal.

1.1.18

Duplicate speech: the last known class is fixed. Session-history audits showed every remaining repeat came from a screen repaint captured mid-overwrite: the reader grabbed a “chimera” copy of a message — identical opening, then interleaved old/new screen garbage — which matched nothing in the duplicate filter and spoke again. Two texts that share the same first ~12 words are now treated as the same message, so these repeats are silenced.

Stray screen symbols are never spoken. Terminal indicator glyphs (mode arrows, bullets, spinner marks) could bleed into a captured message during a repaint and be read aloud; they are now stripped from everything spoken.

Question popup dismisses itself when answered elsewhere. Answer a question from the Claude mobile app, by typing in the terminal, or with Esc, and the popup notices the question is gone and closes on its own instead of sitting there waiting for input.

1.1.17

Question popup: “Something else” works. Choosing Something else and typing an answer was declining the whole question (and dropping the typed text into the terminal): on the menu's “Type something.” row, typing directly opens the field — the extra Enter the popup sent first was the decline. Submit now navigates, types, and confirms correctly.

Your own typing is never read aloud. A message typed while Claude was still working (queued under the status spinner) could be picked up and spoken as if Claude said it; the reader now stops at the spinner — everything below it is live input, never speech.

Diagnostics Logging (Preferences → Claude, off by default): writes question-popup and narration traces to the diagnostics log so problem reports can be diagnosed without a special build.

1.1.16

Repeated narration and spoken tool chatter, root-caused from real session history: tool summaries that render indented under a message were being glued onto it, so every re-scan produced a “new” message (spoken again, tool line included). Those lines now mark the message finished instead of joining it. Transient status lines (“Waiting…”, “Running…”) are never spoken.

1.1.15

Collapsed tool output like “Read 1 file (ctrl+o to expand)” is no longer read aloud — the marker could land on a wrapped line where the filter missed it; anything carrying it anywhere in the block is now ignored. Short repeated messages are also caught better by the duplicate filter.

1.1.14

No more double-spoken messages. The same reply reaches Claude Speak twice by design (once read live off the terminal screen, once from the conversation record), and the duplicate filter compared the two word-for-word — but the two copies render formatting differently (code blocks, bullets, dashes), so any formatted message slipped through and was spoken twice. Messages are now matched on their letters and digits alone, ignoring formatting entirely, and final answers pass through the same filter (previously only the in-progress narration did).

1.1.13

Claude Speak for VS Code. The extension is now available for Visual Studio Code as well — search for Claude Speak in the VS Code marketplace (publisher Interactive Lion), or install InteractiveLion.claudespeak. Same interface, same features; sessions run in terminal tabs beneath the Speak/Listen pages, and files Claude touches open in VS Code's own editor. (First release: microphone dictation and the sessions drawer lists are still being ported.)

Find sessions faster. The Sessions drawer's two groups (Claude Speak Sessions and the renamed Sessions in Working Directory) are now collapsible, and both show only sessions from the directory picked in the Working Directory dropdown (the + button adds a directory to the list, retained across restarts). A new Search row filters both groups live: type part of a session's name and/or pick a model from the dropdown.

Playback fixes. Opening a session no longer reads its old messages aloud: the live-narration reader armed itself while the resume menu was still up and then treated the replayed conversation as new narration; it now waits for the terminal to reach its idle prompt, so only genuinely new messages speak. And closing a session tab now silences it immediately — its playing audio stops and its queued messages are dropped, where before the closed session kept talking.

Question popup. When Claude asks a question, a form now opens over that session's terminal instead of leaving you to navigate the terminal menu: radio buttons for single-choice questions, checkboxes when several answers are accepted, and a Something else option with a text box for your own answer. Multiple questions page with Previous/Next and a Submit button once the last one is answered; Submit answers the question in the terminal for you. Closing the popup takes no action. Speaker icons read the question, the answers, or both aloud — and each answer row has its own speaker; they interrupt whatever is playing and the interrupted message resumes right where it stopped. Controlled by Show Question Popup (on by default) and Switch to Session on Question (brings the asking tab forward) in Preferences → Claude, both overridable per session via the tab gear.

Terminal search. Every terminal's command bar now has a magnifier at its right end (next to the menu-commands gear) that opens a search box over that terminal. A two-arrow icon toggles the direction — the blue arrow is active (↓ Top to Bottom, ↑ Bottom to Top; hover for the name); type text and press Enter: the entire terminal history is searched case-insensitively, all matches are highlighted, and the view scrolls to the first one. A Match 1 of N label with previous/next arrows steps through the matches (wrapping at the ends), the box's inner × clears it, and Esc closes the search. Terminal scrollback was also raised from 1,000 to 10,000 lines so searches reach further back.

Intermediate messages speak the moment they appear again. A Claude Code change (its transcript file no longer reliably records mid-turn messages — their issue #21751) had silently broken live narration: step-by-step messages weren't spoken until the next command finished. Narration is now read directly from the terminal screen the instant Claude prints it, so with Play intermediate messages on you hear what Claude is doing as it does it. The final answer still arrives through the standard path, and duplicate delivery of the same text (the old delayed route can still echo a message later) is filtered out.

1.1.11

The model shown for each session now reflects its latest reply, not what it started on — in both places it appears: the Sessions (selection) drawer list, and a new always-visible Last Reply Model line in each session's settings drawer. Claude can switch a session's model mid-conversation (for example a rate-limit fallback from Fable 5 to Opus 4.8); the list used to keep reporting the first model in the transcript forever, and the settings drawer only showed your configured preference. Note the distinction (shown in each label's hover tip): this is the model that answered last — the terminal's /model checkmark is the session's setting, and during a rate-limit fallback the two can legitimately differ until the fallback ends. Newer model names like Fable 5 display properly instead of as a raw model id, and internal “synthetic” transcript entries can no longer appear as a session's model.

Root-cause fix for panels freezing after a Remote Desktop reconnect in Visual Studio. 1.1.10's diagnostics proved the browser control's internal display pipeline (graphics devices + a screen-capture session, created once and never rebuilt) dies on reconnect and that no external nudge — visibility toggles, layout changes, rebuild-in-place — can revive it. Recovery now rebuilds that internal pipeline directly: fresh graphics devices and a fresh capture of the still-running browser, so the page, your sessions, and full terminal scrollback all survive untouched. Runs for the visible panels at reconnect (with retries at 4 and 10 seconds while the session finishes standing up) and for background tabs the moment you select them.

1.1.10

The spoken "…says" prefix now always uses a tab's current name. After renaming a tab (for example Main → Chat), playback could keep announcing the old name; the prefix now reads the saved per-session name — the same one every rename updates — instead of a possibly stale tab record.

Stronger Remote Desktop recovery for what's on screen. The Speak/Listen page and the terminal tab visible during a reconnect were rebuilt immediately — sometimes before the new session's display was ready — and could stay frozen (with a mis-fitted layout and hidden scrollbar on terminals) while background tabs recovered fine when selected. Recovery now re-heals the on-screen panels again 4 and 10 seconds after the reconnect, every rebuilt terminal re-measures and re-fits itself (restoring the scrollbar), and the diagnostic log records exactly which panel was rebuilt to speed up any future report.

1.1.9

The name you give a new session now becomes the session's name in Claude itself (sent as /rename once the session is up), so the Claude mobile app, claude.ai, and resume pickers show the name you chose instead of Claude's auto-generated title. Previously the name only appeared on the Claude Speak tab.

1.1.8

Critical Visual Studio fix: reconnecting over Remote Desktop while the Claude Speak panel was open could crash Visual Studio outright — and the crash made VS forget the extension was installed, so it looked like Claude Speak had uninstalled itself. The Remote Desktop display-recovery step could re-trigger itself in a loop; it now runs exactly once per panel. If the extension currently shows as uninstalled, install this version once and it will stay put.

1.1.7

Double-clicking a word in the Speak or Listen box selects just that word again. The browser could re-extend the selection to the whole sentence or paragraph after our fix ran; the native multi-click selection is now suppressed at the source.

After pausing playback, clicking a new spot in the Listen text resumes from there — including clicks that land between words, and including Google voices (which previously resumed where they had stopped regardless of the click).

Sessions using the default model now launch with the Model chosen in Preferences. Previously only per-session overrides added the model to the launch, so "(Use default)" sessions ran the CLI's own default instead of yours.

Selecting a session tab whose resume menu (or another question) is open now reliably drops the cursor into that terminal — the check runs after the tab is actually shown and retries once while the menu is still painting, and it now recognizes the "Resume from summary / Resume full" menu explicitly.

On reopening Visual Studio, the visible terminal no longer keeps a stale layout (mis-wrapped output, missing scrollbar): terminals re-fit after the panel finishes restoring and whenever their size changes.

Visual Studio: Claude Speak now also appears directly on the View menu, for installs where the View > Other Windows entry never merges.

A session whose Listen settings are returned to Use Global Settings now speaks with the global voice again (a stale per-session voice override could stick).

Arrow/Enter/Esc keys pressed on the Speak page now drive the active terminal instead of always the first one.

Stability hardening from a full code audit: a malformed message can no longer crash the host, a failed terminal launch can be retried instead of leaving a dead tab, a mid-drain message is spoken immediately instead of waiting for the next one, and the Visual Studio panel releases its file watcher when closed.

More audit fixes: cross-thread races that could corrupt session settings, mis-attribute a new session's id to the wrong tab, or silently drop history entries are now locked down; a session whose claude process dies now says so in the terminal instead of silently freezing; and a failed launch no longer leaks console handles.

The file editor (Monaco) now reports whether a save actually succeeded — previously it showed “saved” even when the write failed (for example a locked or read-only file) — keeps the file's original text encoding instead of silently re-encoding it, and asks before closing a tab with unsaved changes.

The Sessions and New Session buttons now work while a file-editor or update tab is selected (they used to open their drawer in a hidden view, so the click appeared dead).

The Sessions drawer no longer freezes the window while it gathers session details (models, sizes, titles are read in the background), and Update Claude no longer stalls the window while detecting how Claude Code is installed.

The bug-report form now says plainly that diagnostic logs include your recent dictation and spoken-message text.

Background session tabs now recover after a Remote Desktop reconnect too. Since 1.1.6 the on-screen panel came back, but a session tab you weren't looking at during the reconnect stayed frozen when you switched to it. Now each session tab rebuilds its display the moment you select it (once per reconnect), so all your sessions are reachable again — without disturbing the ones you aren't using.

1.1.6

Gentler Remote Desktop recovery. The 1.1.5 rebuild was too heavy-handed — a burst of quick reconnects could make the panels flicker and the terminals reflow. Now the panels rebuild only once per reconnect (repeated reconnects within ten seconds are ignored) and only the panels actually on screen are touched, so your background session tabs are left alone.

1.1.5

Stronger fix for panels going blank after a Remote Desktop reconnect. The 1.1.4 fix didn't fully recover every case; the panels now rebuild their display more forcefully when your session reconnects or moves back to the physical console, without losing your open sessions or terminal history.

1.1.4

The Claude Speak panels no longer freeze after a Remote Desktop reconnect. When your session disconnects and reconnects (or moves back to the physical console), the panels now rebuild their display automatically instead of going blank — no more restarting to get them back.

1.1.3

The Model dropdowns (Claude Preferences, New Session, and the per-session override) now list the full model line-up and refresh live: the list is looked up from the Anthropic models API using your Claude Code sign-in, and falls back to a built-in list when offline.

New Auto Prune History (on by default): keeps stored history tidy by dropping entries older than a chosen History Retention age and capping each session at a Max Items count, and removing the record for sessions untouched past that age. A session you're currently viewing is never emptied, and each session can keep its own settings or be exempted from the New Session / Session Settings drawers. It only touches ClaudeSpeak's own history, never Claude's transcripts.

The Claude Speak panel now recovers on its own if its page crashes (it reloads instead of getting stuck on “this page is having a problem”), and the Visual Studio extension cleans up older duplicate installs of itself on startup.

1.1.2

Mid-turn narration is now spoken in real time. A background monitor reads each loaded session's transcript as Claude writes it, so a message Claude says is read within about a second — instead of waiting for the next command or the end of the turn to trigger it. It covers all loaded sessions, never double-speaks (it shares the existing de-duplication), and stays silent for any session that has Play intermediate messages turned off.

1.1.1

The Code and Files panes now load each session's recorded history when you select its terminal (the commands it ran and the files it touched, with path and +/- counts), instead of only showing actions from the current app session — the same way the Listen history loads.

1.1.0

Fixed: when you have several sessions open, selecting a terminal now loads that terminal's own history into the Listen box. Previously only the first session's history was available, so the box could stay frozen on it and never follow the tab you selected (the per-session history list was built once at startup, before the other sessions finished loading, and never rebuilt).

Restored the 1.0.97 improvements (terminal scrollbar, speaker-icon blink, single-word double-click) on top of that fix.

1.0.97

Fixed: the last session you load now shows its terminal scrollbar (the terminal is re-fitted when its tab becomes active, instead of only on its first load).

Fixed: a session tab's speaker icon now blinks blue while that session's reply is being spoken.

Fixed: double-clicking a word in the Speak and Listen panes now selects just that word, not the whole sentence or paragraph.

1.0.96

New Return Listen to Active Terminal preference (global and per-session). When a message finishes — or you fast-forward to the end with Skip — the Listen tab returns to the terminal you're viewing and loads its last spoken text, instead of staying on the session that just spoke. Only shown when neither Auto Switch to Speak nor Switch Terminal to Speaker is on.

1.0.95

Fixed: button tooltips (such as "Skip to next message" on the Listen tab) no longer get stuck on screen. All tab buttons now use the same dismiss-reliable in-page tooltip already used by the terminal menu.

1.0.94

Fixed: your default voice now sticks across restarts. It could be lost when voices loaded in stages and a fallback voice was picked before yours finished loading.

1.0.93

Switching to a session tab now drops the cursor into its terminal automatically when Claude is waiting on a question there (the resume menu, a permission prompt, or plan approval) — so you can answer without clicking first. Tabs with no open question keep your cursor where it is.
New Effort setting (Low … Max) for new sessions, global and per-session.
Permission Mode replaces the Skip Permissions checkbox: Default, Accept Edits, Plan, Auto, Don't Ask, or Bypass (skip all). Global and per-session.
Fork session on resume: load a saved session as a new branched session id instead of continuing the original.

Command menu refreshed against the current Claude CLI.

1.0.92

Visual Studio: the panel no longer freezes after reconnecting over Remote Desktop.

1.0.91

New Auto Switch to Listen preference (global and per session). Turn it off to keep hearing replies read aloud without the Listen tab pulling focus from the tab you're on.

1.0.90

Internal diagnostics to help troubleshoot UI issues; corrected the displayed version number.

1.0.89

Claude Speak now updates itself. The standalone app checks for new versions on launch (and via Check for Updates in Preferences) and installs them in place.
New Windows installer for the standalone app, installing to Program Files with a Start Menu shortcut and clean uninstall.
Report a Bug / Request a Feature (in About) now opens the public GitHub issue tracker with a guided form, instead of an email form.
The Visual Studio extension can prompt you to rate it on the Marketplace after a few uses.
New Session now works even when no session is open.

Update Claude result message cleaned up; assorted fixes.

1.0.87

Reworked Update Claude: it confirms before closing your sessions, runs the upgrade in a visible Claude Update tab so you can watch progress, shows a result popup (with Retry on failure), then reopens and resumes your sessions.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.86

Selecting a terminal loads that session's last message into the Listen box, falling back to the Claude transcript when the session has no captured history; Previous / Skip navigate that full history.
Command-bar tooltips now appear in place instead of off-screen.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.85

Double-click selects a single word at the click point in the Speak and Listen boxes.
The command-menu hover highlight clears reliably when the cursor leaves the terminal.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.84

Selecting a terminal loads its last message; Previous / Skip are scoped to the selected terminal's history.
Confirmation prompt before closing a session tab.
The Listen volume icon and a session's tab mute badge turn red when muted.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.83

Claude's "no reply needed" placeholder is no longer read aloud.
Switch Terminal to Speaker is held while you have an unsent message in the Speak box, then applied when you send.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.82

Global Claude Preferences (font, colors, and more) propagate live to every session using global settings.
A manually-loaded session takes terminal focus; a resumed session no longer replays its old last message before the first new one.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.81

New Session uses the full settings form, so you can set per-session overrides before the session launches.
Uniform, larger inputs in the session settings and a tidied New Session layout.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.80

Redesigned per-session Settings: collapsible Claude / Listen / Menu groups with Use Global Settings, mirroring the global Preferences.
New Session opens over the terminal pane; the tab layout is gear, speaker, name, close.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.79

Horizontal tab-strip scrolling with arrows; tabs fill the width when there is room.
Interrupt toggle on Send, a Microphone Timeout setting, and a muted volume icon at zero.
Switch Terminal to Speaker (global default and per-session).

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.56–1.0.78

Incremental builds in this range; detailed per-version notes were not recorded for them.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.54

The Listen box became editable — paste or type text and play it.
Last-used time shown for each session in the Sessions drawer.
Navigation keys handled correctly inside Visual Studio.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.53

Previous-message button added to the transport.
Skip walks forward through played history before pulling from the queue.
Keyboard navigation reaches the embedded terminal.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.51–1.0.52

Sessions drawer moved into the bottom (terminal) region.
Code-tab commands run in bash so captured commands replay correctly.
Marketplace publishing prepared.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.48–1.0.50

The session drawer and per-session settings were introduced.
Per-session voice, the gear-anchored settings drawer, and live voice switching (changing a voice mid-playback).

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.47

The in-app Claude Speak Help panel (with table of contents and anchors).
Mail credentials stored encrypted.

Bug fixes and refinements (WebView2 rendering).

1.0.44–1.0.45

Dual text-to-speech engines — Microsoft (OS) and Google voices in one list.
Speak on/off toggle and the full slash-command list.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.40–1.0.42

The per-terminal command menu bar — customizable, with a full command list and drag-to-reorder.
Per-session working directory on New Session.
Listen on/off and voice tools.

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.39

In-app Report a Bug / Request a Feature form (sent by email).

Bug fixes and refinements.

1.0.34–1.0.38

Dictation runs on the visible / current session (no hidden instance).
Dictation auto-finalizes on silence, beating Claude's auto-submit.

Bug fixes and refinements (dictation reliability).

1.0.26–1.0.33

First builds tracked in the repo: live voice switching, diagnostic-log attachments on bug reports, and per-host data isolation.

Bug fixes and refinements (speech-to-text).

1.0.25 & earlier

The original Claude Speak: speak and dictate prompts, Listen with word highlighting and voices, the Code and Files tabs, History, embedded Claude terminals, multiple sessions, and Preferences. (Predates the version history, so itemized notes are not available.)